Abu Dhabi rival investigated takeover of Standard Chartered bank

SHARES in Standard Chartered swung wildly yesterday after the Middle East’s largest lender said it explored a potential bid for the FTSE 100 bank.

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) said it had been running the rule over the London-based lender, but is no longer examining a bid. Shares in Standard Chartered jumped by more than a fifth following initial reports of takeover interest before giving up most of those gains following FAB’S clarification to trade up around 7pc.

FAB said: “First Abu Dhabi Bank confirms that it had previously been at the very early stages of evaluating a possible offer for Standard Chartered, but as of the date of this announcement, is no longer doing so.”

The Gulf lender had been considering a full takeover of Standard Chartered, Bloomberg first reported, in an attempt to build an emerging markets lender with more than $1trillion (£840bn) of assets. Standard Chartered was worth about £19.4bn before news of the takeover interest was revealed.

Had the deal gone ahead, it would have represented the first major banking deal involving a British-based lender since TSB was snapped up by Spain’s Banco Sabadell in 2015.

The move will likely increase speculation about other potential bids for Standard Chartered, which makes most of its money in Asia.

Gary Greenwood, an analyst at Shore Capital, said Standard Chartered has long been talked about as a bid candidate, mainly linked with takeovers by Western and Chinese banks.

He added: “A takeover by either

Western or Chinese banks would arguably compromise the perception of the bank as being regionally independent. A bid by a Middle Eastern bank would therefore represent a different angle and maybe one that could be politically more palatable to its customers.”

Standard Chartered declined to comment.